 "A firefighter works at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. Image- AFP")
A CCTV footage from the runway captured the terrifying moment an Air India aircraft crashed shortly after departing from Ahmedabad on Thursday. The London-bound plane abruptly lost altitude before catching fire, unleashing dense black smoke into the air.
Eyewitness videos circulating on social media show the aircraft descending rapidly before the fiery impact, followed by screams and chaos on the ground.
Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video.
An Ahmedabad-London Air India plane carrying 242 passengers and crew crashed into a medical college complex here minutes after takeoff on Thursday, possibly killing all on board in one of the country’s worst air tragedies.
According to Air India, of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The other 12 were two pilots and 10 crew members.
The pilot of the twin-engine wide bodied aircraft issued a ‘Mayday’ distress call, denoting a full emergency, soon after takeoff at 1.39 pm, the Air Traffic Control at Ahmedabad said.
The search was also on for the aircraft’s black box – the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder – for clues to understand what happened in the last crucial moments.
The 11-year-old aircraft could be seen from miles away, losing altitude rapidly and combusting in a fiery blaze that sent plumes of thick black smoke spiralling up in the air.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe aircraft climbed just about 600-800 feet before plummeting to the ground almost immediately, aviation sources said.
Visuals from the wreckage area showed bodies being pulled out and the injured, many with burns, wheeled into the city civil hospital close by.
Eyewitnesses in Ahmedabad said the blaze was so intense that it led to several multi-storey buildings being burnt, trees singed and cars damaged. One image showed the snout of the plane crashing through the top floor of a building that appeared to be a dining area of the hostel of nurses and doctors.
Elsewhere too, there were scenes of complete devastation with mangled metal of the wreckage, snarls of tangled wire and smoke rising from burning embers.
This is the first crash involving the Boeing Dreamliner, feted for its advanced features. It is also India’s second biggest air disaster since 2020 when an Air India Express flight skidded off a wet runway while landing at Kozhikode in Kerala and split into two. Of the 190 people on board, 21, including two pilots, lost their lives.
Airport operations in Ahmedabad were temporarily suspended and resumed towards the evening.
The shock of the disaster echoed through political corridors in India and abroad with heads of states and others offering their condolences.